Canada forum discusses capitalist trade conflicts vs. a working-class road forward

By John Steele
January 13, 2025

MONTREAL — “Ottawa and Washington are trying to line up working people in each country against one another, and against workers in other countries,” Steve Penner, organizer of the Communist League in Canada, told a Militant Labour Forum here Dec. 21. In this conflict “working people will be the main casualties.”

The forum was organized to discuss how workers should respond to the Canadian government’s campaign against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 25% tariff on products from Canada and Mexico.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned that Ottawa would retaliate with its own set of tariffs on U.S. goods. He argued that the government of Mexico, not Canada, was Washington’s real problem and could be kicked out of the North American trade pact.

Trudeau also says Washington and Ottawa should unite against Beijing. In October both governments imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles. Ottawa also imposed a 25% surtax on steel and aluminum imports from China.

Premiers Douglas Ford of Ontario and David Eby of British Columbia upped the stakes, threatening to shut down energy supplies to the U.S. if Trump carries out his threat.

“Heightened competition for markets and resources is pulling the imperialist ‘world order’ apart,” Penner said.

“There are big stakes for how working people and our unions respond. History shows that trade wars point toward future shooting wars in which the working class will be the cannon fodder. Sharpening conflicts among the imperialist powers over control of world markets and colonies preceded both the First and Second World Wars.”

He said a call by officials of the Canadian Labour Congress Nov. 26 for working people in Canada to join with the country’s capitalist rulers in fighting Trump’s threats is a far bigger problem for workers than the U.S. president-elect’s threats.

“This attack on our industries,” said a statement signed by CLC President Bea Bruske, “jeopardizes good, unionized jobs across vital sectors like manufacturing, mining, energy, and agriculture — jobs that are the backbone of our economy.”

“But Canada is a class-divided society,” Penner said. “There is no ‘we’ that includes Canada’s working people together with the capitalist bosses who exploit and oppress us. The government that is attacking our right to strike and other fundamental freedoms is acting on their behalf to defend their industries and profit system.”

In the week before the forum, Trudeau’s government ordered 55,000 striking postal workers back to work, the third time Ottawa has banned workers from striking in the past four months.

“The idea that the unions should be fighting to defend ‘Canadian’ jobs here, or ‘American’ jobs in the U.S., is a deadly trap.

“The working class is an international class,” Penner continued. “We need to unite to defend our interests against the ruling billionaire families, including by fighting for jobs for all.”

Working-class political action

“The drive by the CLC officials to convince workers to join Ottawa’s ‘Team Canada’ against Trump is a deadly obstacle to the unions defending workers’ interests,” the CL leader said.

“Anti-Americanism is a central pillar of Canadian nationalism. But U.S. workers are not the enemy of the working class in this country. They are our most important and powerful ally, and the Canadian and U.S. bosses are our common enemy.

“The rulers’ goal is to block any form of independent working-class political action that could lead to labor challenging the political rule of the capitalist class,” he said.

“In 2022 unions in Ontario took a step forward when they threatened a general strike in defense of the 55,000 school support workers who defied a law banning their right to strike. Their determined and solid effort forced the provincial government to repeal the law.

“In the past few years hundreds of thousands of workers in the U.S. and Canada have waged fights for better wages and working conditions,” Penner said.

“Out of these experiences, workers are learning the power of united working-class action. But this doesn’t automatically lead workers to recognize that calls to support the Canadian rulers’ against their rivals, in the inevitable trade conflicts that arise, are a deadly trap.”

That’s why CL members seek ways to point to workers’ common interests, against the chauvinism fostered by the rulers and their political parties, he said. To advance an independent working-class road forward, Penner urged meeting participants to campaign for Philippe Tessier, the CL’s candidate in the Quebec National Assembly by-election for Terrebonne.

“My campaign explains the need to build solidarity with working people in Mexico, the U.S. and internationally,” Tessier said during the discussion. “The unions need to forge their own independent foreign policy that starts from the class interests workers share in common worldwide.

“That’s the road toward building a mass party of labor based on the unions, with the perspective of replacing the political power of the ruling capitalist families with a workers government,” he said. “And to joining in the fight for a socialist world.”